Louise Rennison

Louise Rennison
Born	1951 Leeds
Nationality	British
Notable works	Confessions of Georgia Nicolson The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey
Website
www.louiserennison.com

Louise Rennison is an English author and comedian.

She is the author of the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series for teenage girls. This series records the exploits of a teenage girl, Georgia Nicolson, and her best friends, the Ace Gang. Her first and second novels, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging and It's OK, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers were portrayed in a film adaptation called Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. She has also written a series of books about Georgia's younger cousin, The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey.

She won the Queen of Teen competition in 2008.

Her one-woman live show Stevie Wonder Felt my Face won awards in the 1980s. Her other shows are Bob Marley's Gardener Sold My Friend and Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head.

She has written comedy scripts, and also works for BBC Radio 4.

Rennison lives in Brighton. She was brought up in Yorkshire, in a three-bedroomed council house with her mum, dad, grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin. When she was 15, her family moved to Wairakei, New Zealand. She attended Brighton University. Rennison is published by HarperCollins Publishers in the UK.

Biography

Rennison based much of the material in her books on her childhood in Leeds, England, where she lived until her family moved to New Zealand when she was fifteen years old. Many of these experiences come from when she was attending Parklands Girls' High School. After moving to New Zealand she became pregnant and later gave up her daughter for adoption before returning to the UK. She is still unmarried and currently lives in Brighton.

She lived in a small flat in Notting Hill in her twenties doing an assortment of different jobs until she pursued her dream of acting and enrolled in a Performing Arts course in Brighton. There Rennison wrote and performed a one-woman autobiographical show, "Stevie Wonder Felt my Face." She went on to tour performing this show that was well-recieved with many awards and even later a BBC show. Along with playwriting, she wrote for a London newspaper writing about whatever interested her, such as how pointless it is to date over 35. Because of these articles, Picadilly Press contacted Rennison and asked her if she wanted to write a teenage diary book. They said her writing was "so self-obsessed and so childish" that she would be perfect to write such a book.

With Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging being her first novel, she used actual names of real people from her childhood as she wrote. However, she forgot to change the names before the book was published. Rennison said that she writes not in an attempt to teach, but to make herself laugh. She said, "I wanted Georgia to be a decent person. I wanted her to be someone who is a bit stupid and self-obsessed and difficult and funny and rude, and a bit jealous and all those other things. But I wanted her to have a good heart." Rennison also has said that her books are not just for teenage girls, but have a "potential resonance beyond the young." In particular, Rennison often brings feminist ideals in between the lines of her writing. While studying in Brighton she was a part of an "all-female cabaret group called Women with Beards," a performing group that poked fun at men and why they are responsible "for all the ills of society while the audience, largely female, would all cheer in agreement." Some similar themes carried over into her novel writing. She wanted her books to get girls talking and deciding for themselves what they want to do and who they want to be not letting men decide for them.

Responses

Rennison's novels are have received positive and negative responses. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging received the Michael L. Printz Honor Award in 2001 and has become a worldwide bestseller now translated into 34 different languages. She has also been rewarded with the Nestle Smarties Book Prize and the Roald Dahl Funny Prize for the first book in The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey series, Withering Tights.

Despite the positive reception of her novels, Rennison also faces interrogation from teachers and parents about the content she writes. Often when she visits schools she is well received by the students, but the staff complains to her about the topics she discusses in her novels. However, Rennison rarely apologizes for her writing. She seeks out 14-year-old girls to talk with them about what they would want to read and writes that. Her response to these teachers has been, "Surely they know what to expect, they know [my books are] all about boys and snogging and all those experiences. What else am I going to talk about?"

Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

1. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (1999)
2. It's OK, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers (UK title) / On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God (US title) (2001)
3. Knocked Out by my Nunga-Nungas (2002)
4. Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants (2003)
5. ...And That's When It Fell Off in My Hand (UK title) / Away Laughing on a Fast Camel (US title) (2004)
6. ...Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers (2005)
7. Startled by His Furry Shorts (2006)
8. Luuurve is a Many Trousered Thing (UK title) / Love is a Many Trousered Thing (US title) (2007)
9. Stop in the Name of Pants! (2008)
10. Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? (2009)

In 2007, a guide titled Let the Snog Fest Begin! was released especially for World Book Day. In this, 'Georgia gives her top tips on how to look cool and how NOT to behave if you want to hang on to your Sex God'. A spin-off, titled How To Make Any Twit Fall in Love With You, is available in 10 instalments in 10 days starting 3 March 2011 exclusively through SugarScape.

The story is told autobiographically, through the journal of a teenage girl named Georgia Nicolson. The books detail events in Georgia's life as she grows up in England, along with a group of her close friends known as 'the Ace Gang.'

The majority of plotlines explored in the series follow Georgia and her friends' relationships with boys. A continued theme is Georgia's inability to choose between her initial boyfriend Robbie, the Italian Masimo, and her close friend Dave. The books also narrate the relationships of the rest of the Ace Gang, in less detail, and the impact the main antagonist of the series Lindsay has on these relationships.

A continual source of humour within the series derives from Georgia's family; her promiscuous mother, embarrassing father, eccentric younger sister and violent pet cats provide additional storylines throughout the series.

Georgia's use of language is also somewhat strange, as a glossary is featured in the back of each novel. This was to explain the meaning of her many peculiar phrases, such as 'red-bottomosity' (Georgia's term for unfaithfulness in relationships), as well as things/ concepts that readers from other countries may not be familiar with, such as 'Rolf Harris'.

The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey

• Withering Tights: (August 2010)
• A Midsummer Tights Dream (February 2012)
• The Taming of the Tights (UK title) / Wild Girls, Wild Boys, Wild Tights (AUS title) (June 2013)

External links

• Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
• BBC Slink interview Louise Rennison answers fans' questions on writing and the Georgia Nicolson books
• Louise Rennison Official Fan Page